{"id":692503,"date":"2026-04-01T19:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692503\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T19:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:58:20","slug":"former-nba-champion-thinks-celtics-can-without-a-doubt-win-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692503\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NBA Champion Thinks Celtics Can ‘Without A Doubt’ Win Title"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBA world isn’t taking the Boston Celtics<\/a> lightly as a legitimate title contender.<\/p>\n

Boston clinched a playoff berth<\/a> and fifth-straight 50-win season in what many expected to be a year of regrouping without Jayson Tatum. The Celtics have seven games remaining to secure the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed behind the Detroit Pistons, who are playing without Cade Cunningham.<\/p>\n

Can the Celtics return to glory two years after winning it all? Former NBA guard Iman Shumpert said Wednesday<\/a> on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” that Boston is “without a doubt” capable of restoring that championship ceiling.<\/p>\n

Shumpert feels the Celtics grew with Tatum sidelined, but MVP candidate Jaylen Brown has no issue sharing the spotlight with his returning All-NBA teammate.<\/p>\n

“Jaylen Brown has all season shown that he will make time for Jayson Tatum to come back. He will make room for Jayson Tatum to come back,” Shumpert said. “But if Jayson Tatum does not get dressed, he can still hold down the fort.<\/p>\n

“I think that gave a ton of confidence to that locker room. Payton Pritchard is playing really well. These guys don’t feel like they are as far off as everybody tried to put them out at the beginning of the season.”<\/p>\n

The Celtics are 9-2 with Tatum on the court, and the 28-year-old has moved closer to peak form quicker than most people would have imagined. Tatum tallied a season-high 32 points in Sunday’s 114-99 win over the Charlotte Hornets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Boston has gone from a playoff sleeper<\/a> to the betting favorite to win the East. The Celtics can make another championship statement when they play the Miami Heat on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.<\/p>\n

More Celtics:\u00a0NBA Legend On Celtics Duo’s Budding Legacy, Place In Franchise History<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA world isn’t taking the Boston Celtics lightly as a legitimate title contender. Boston clinched a playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-692503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116331223940294587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}